Rating: 
Summary: The normal high standard of murach
Review: All of murachs books are very well written, easy to follow, and always accurate. The typos and errors that plague most computer books are not found here. I for one feel that you never go wrong with Murach.
Rating: 
Summary: Another solid publication from Murach
Review: As a MS RD I read a lot of programming books. To be honest I don't get into a lot of them, but I always read Murach's and so far I've never been disappointed. This publication, Murach's ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET provides a fantastic foundation for a range of readers with different programming capabilities. I have some employees that are relatively new to ASP.NET who have found the book to be an invaluable resource, but I have also found that some of my more experienced programmers are 'borrowing' it. I like the layout which sees examples on the right and explanations on the left. The chapters follow a logical path and flow nicely, starting with simple application examples and moving to the more complicatied ones. There are no less than 23 complete application examples for your learning pleaseure! For my part I was more interested in the later more technical topics such as Web Services. As a bonus for those who are new to Visual Studio there are plenty of tips on how to get around. I would reccommend this book to beginner to intermediate ASP.NET programmers, although all levels will find it to be an invaluable reference.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for teaching ASP.NET
Review: As a teacher of ASP.NET, I have tried several textbooks. I always like a textbook that supplements my teaching rather than dictates it. Murach's ASP.NET does just that and is an excellent book for teaching web programming because of its format.
The left-hand page explains a particular concept while the right-hand page illustrates the concept with code snippets that are easy to understand. My students get frustrated trying to sift through long sample programs to find the few lines of code that illustrate a given point. With Murach's code snippets, the code is easy to understand.
The authors also use code-behind instead of embedding code via the ASP.OLD style. Not many books do that, thus giving this book a rich, more modern approach to the way ASP.NET programming should be done.
The more I read this book, the better it gets.
Rating:
Summary: Murach books are the best
Review: Before trying to learn Visual Basic.Net, I had very little
experience with object oriented programming, other than
writing an Excel timesheet application in Visual Basic for
Applications, which I would call Object Oriented Lite.
I had tried to teach myself Visual Basic several years ago, but I
never did understand it very well. I felt there was a need at my company for a standardized
programming environment which could be used for both
Windows desktop and web applications. I started purchasing
book after book that covered VB.Net and ASP.Net,
but I didn't feel quite ready to tackle my first program. Then I came across Murach's beginning Visual Basic.Net
and Murach's ASP.Net. I felt for the first time
that I had all of the pieces I needed to put together
a complete application, and I felt I had the confidence
to start working on a program that I could call my own that
could actually save somebody some time and effort. I started working on an ASP.Net program to automate
our Employee Expense Reimbursement form so I could
put to use many of the .Net features I have learned.
I never really expected that anybody would actually
use it. To make a long story short, one of the people
from our finance department asked for a demo of the
program and they want to have our employees start
using it as soon as we can get our server ready. So, I would highly recommend these two books for
the library of anyone who is serious about learning
Visual Basic.Net and ASP.Net.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Worth the Time even if it's Free!
Review: I am a Jr. level programmer with 3 years experience with developing web apps in ASP 3.0. My skills are strong with ASP 3.0, mostly because of Wrox Beginning ASP 3.0 book. Sure, I have read a bunch of books and have gotten into COM, etcetera... The Wrox book gave me an excellent description of low to mid level abilities of ASP 3.0 and gave me nice examples for which to begin my education. I was hoping for the same with the Murach's book, unfortunately that is not the case. They market it as saying, "no other book teaches you some much so fast." Well, that is not the case, the 688 page book has a few paragraph's on the left page and a picture, or a couple line code snippet with a brief bulleted list summarizing the following page. So I would have to say I learned absolutely nothing with this book.
My hope was that these authors could provide me with strong solid basis so I could get in to developing. Eventually, I purchased the Microsoft press book for the 70-305 exam, and to tell you the truth, that book was magic compared to this book. The Murach ASP.net book doesn't even have general examples, it has code snippets and coding from an e-commerce site which you can download from them. Well there isn't any commenting, so for a Jr. level developer it ain't easy!
This book is for a mid-senior level VB developer that needs to learn ASP.net in a weekend. For beginners of programming, no way, for junior programmers, not worth you time or your $40. I know I spent 2 days trying to connect to my SQL Server to read an SP and it shouldn't be so tough. Yes, I did get it to work, but only after reading an example from the Microsoft book. As for the sections, the form validation section wasn't horrible, but the rest of the book was. I kind of think of this book as a PowerPoint presentation, not a reference or a tutorial.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I am very experienced with VB.NET and other programming languages, but new to any form of ASP. I didn't like this book very much. There is nothing wrong with the information, but it is not very well organized.
The early chapters mix basic and more advanced information in the paragraph. He often presents stuff that I am in no postion to understand until more basic concepts have been covered. He also introduces concepts that I will not use until much later. I would rather learn about something and use it immediately. Other topics can wait until I have to use them.
I can learn ASP.Net from this book, but it seems like a lot more work than it should be.
Also, his habit of repeating the same thing on the left and right page annoys me. I suppose some people like the instant review
Rating:
Summary: You have got to be kidding me!
Review: I have never been so irritated and frustrated by a book in terms of its presentation and format. If any newcomer is able to follow along with the tutorial application and actually build it, I'd be very, very surprised.
I just do not see the point of having the book's text on even pages and a bulleted review of that same text (along with code) on odd pages. There's no mention of how to code the HTML portions, you have to already know how by looking at some screen shots. There's just no follow-through from chapter to chapter as the author grows the application.
I'm still searching for a book on ASP.NET that walks the reader through the construction of an actual, useful application from A to Z.
Rating:
Summary: Great for teaching an ASP.NET course
Review: I imagine my situation is a bit different from most other reviewers. I teach a Web programming course at Indiana University. I have always employed some form of Visual Basic, but it has varied over the past few years as new Microsoft technology has become available. Now that we can use Visual Studio .NET, Web development with ASP.NET has become much easier to teach. Still, a good textbook is a must, and a great one is that much better -- for me and for the students.
With this relatively new addition to the Murach series, I think I've found the best book out there. Granted, there are some worthy competitors, including the two ASP.NET books by Stephen Walther I've use in the past, but this book by Prince and Lowe is just what I've been looking for. It is written extremely clearly, it covers all of the basics and then some (plenty for an introductory course in Web development), all of the source code is downloadable and serves as a model of clean coding, and it comes with an instructor's guide (in complete contrast to most of the "trade" books on ASP.NET). If you've ever taught university courses and have been evaluated by your students, you realize that they almost always never give a very good rating to the required textbook. I'm confident that this not be the case with this book. I think the students will love it.
This book does presume knowledge of VB.NET, more than my students are likely to have. Therefore, I am also requiring Anne Prince's companion VB.NET book. Packaged together, they should provide my students with loads of practical reference material.
As good as this book is, I hope the authors will revise it appropriately when ASP.NET 2.0 comes out officially. From what I've seen, this new version will introduce rapid development tools that are just too good to ignore. I know I'll eventually incorporate them in my course.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended Reading For ASP.NET Newcomers
Review: I make no secret of being a fan of Murach books. This is the 3rd Murach book I have read and it doesn't disappoint. Murach books have a distinctive feel about them because of the way they are layed out. Every left hand page is a narrative and every right hand page contains diagrams and bullet points relating to the narrative. This is a format that works for me, especially in the more involved chapters where the narrative can be read and then the important points revisited on the facing page. These bullet points are also useful for using the book for reference in the weeks and months after initially reading it.The book uses IIS as the web server, MSDE as the database and the Visual Basic IDE as the development environment. The format of most chapters is to introduce new topics or expand on topics previously introduced and then towards the end of the chapter show how these concepts are used in the example web application the book uses. Pros
The space in margins for making notes. The print is clear and there are plenty of diagrams and figures to supplement the text.
The format of the book.
The availability of a full working web site featured in the book that can be downloaded from Murach's web site
The information in the book is accurate with the few errors being highlighted at Murach's web site. Cons
The book exclusively deals with developing ASP.NET using Visual Studio and does not cover developing ASP.NET applications using Web Matrix
Sometimes the points made were a little labored and could be more succinct.
No reference was made to objects such as request.servervariables. Conclusion
Overall the pros easily out weigh the cons. This book is ideal for someone looking to learn ASP.NET from scratch with no previous ASP, HTML nor database experience. However, ideally a basic knowledge of VB.NET is required before tackling this book. This book is all about getting a basic grounding rather than a detailed look 'under the hood' at how ASP works. Initially this book is certainly more of a tutorial book than a reference book but I have found that since reading it through cover to cover I am referring back to individual topics and the use of the right hand page for bullet points and figures makes it very usable as a reference.
Rating:
Summary: Great ASP.net Demystifier
Review: I would have like to give this book 4.5 stars, but you can only give a rounded number of stars.
First the good
having been an VBA programmer and generally used COM as a programming model, i had quite a mental block with programming something as flimsy as a web browser.
It has taken me ages to 'get' what web development is actually about.
This book is absolutely superbly organized to get you to actually understand how to create SQL server backed web sites using visual Studio, ASP.net and IIS. They mention in the book that most other books ignore visual Studio completely and I agree (and I've read a few), This one does a fine job of orienting you round your most likely tool for creating asp.net applications.
This book slowly and by quiet accretion introduces ever more complex topics without much fanfare and overly complex writing or code
I particularly liked the example that the Page class has a Session Property that returns an HTTPSession object, but what if you try to access the Session object from a class that isn't a Page? Easy, use the httpcontext.current.session property which can be accessed from anywhere. Superb.
By the end of typing out the examples in this book you will be able to fully understand what ASP.net is about and you can then move on to more complex books such as those by Sussman or Esposito
The bad and funny;
The applications whilst all fully working are quite simplistic, they are not designed with any scalability in mind, their appearance is sub-professional (maybe in the real world you work with a graphic designer) and there is some laughably absurd over-hyping in the introduction, preface and on the back on how Murach are the best and provide the best books, this is plain silly. Murach are a quality outfit and this is a quality book, but too much self-promotion leaves them open to people wanting to find fault with their overblown hyperbole. I have read in many Reviews that most people seem to either love or hate the double-page format. In this kind of book I am in favour of it, i find in some ways the re-iteration on the right is helpful because if the whole book consisted of dense text it would ultimately be less readable, this is a practical lab-oriented book, and it's meant to be read at the keyboard whilst you try out the code samples, the double page format does in no way impede the easy use or flow of the book.
Finally:
If you are new to ASP.net or you are not new but feel that you don't really get it, buy it, you will enjoy it, and you will learn a great deal, it is my view that this book is a superb introduction and stepping stone towards serious ASP.net mastery, but for that you will have to read some less engaging and ultimately more in depth tomes. There is nothing wrong with a book being beginner to intermediate, we've all got to go through the beginner stage
p.s: I read their SQL server book as well and found that to be a great intro/intermediate text
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